Posts Tagged ‘weight-shift’

Dave Myers of Garden City, Georgia, had never considered flying while working as a carpenter and supervisor for a housing development. The current recession made short work of his career two years ago, and he went to Hawaii to visit relatives. (Everyone should have a relative in Hawaii.) A flight school operating there offered instruction in weight-shift-control trikes, kind of like a hang glider, but you sit in a Rotax-powered gondola. “By the time we leveled off, I was determined to make that my livelihood, whatever it took,” he recalls. He gave away or sold his carpenter tools, sold his house, and soon he had enough money to buy a light-sport $68,000 Krucker Cygnet amphibious trike and get his instructor certificate.

Exploring the Georgia delta

He has little interest in fixed-wing aircraft and is quite happy operating his trike school, Amphibian Air, in Garden City, Georgia (Savannah). To date he has given 75 introductory lessons and taken two pilots through their transition training (10 hours, $1,500), although you can take a complete sport pilot course as well. Now in his 50s, he has discovered a new passion with his wife’s support–and we have gained another pilot to our ranks. Welcome, Dave.